Needs
by otherhawk
Summary: Set sometime after the mutiny. Jack's thoughts during a sleepless night. A sleeping Scarlett guests.


I do not own any characters in this story. Actually as I didn't write the names I could probably have claimed that it was original, but I didn't so I don't own. Remember that.  
  
*******************************************************************  
  
Her hand was thrown across his chest. Her ankle was twisted round his. There were five hours till sunrise. He tried moving a little further away, trying to be gentle, trying not to wake her. She snuggled in closer. He tried rolling onto his side. She sighed in her sleep. He froze. She moved closer still. Her breath was on his neck, tickling, not quite enough to make him squirm.  
  
He could just leave.  
  
No, not really. He'd paid for this room. Nowhere else to go, not tonight. No ship. It's the room or the street. He hated sleeping in the street. He'd had far too much of that as a child.  
  
He could throw the girl out.  
  
Again, not really. It was her room. Or at any rate, she came with it. She'd have nowhere else to go either. Couldn't force her to sleep in the street. Well, maybe . . . no. Wasn't right. Damned morality.  
  
He could always kill her.  
  
Now he was being daft. But still, that constant touching, her arm her leg, her breath; it made him shudder.  
  
She was a nice girl too. Well, maybe not a nice girl, but he liked her. They'd had fun earlier. Fun. That was all that had been. This felt like intimacy. This felt wrong. Felt. Her skin on his, her constant caress. His silent, bewildered agony.  
  
She was a nice girl. He liked her. He couldn't stand her touching him. Breathing on the back of his neck. He rolled round quickly and kissed her. She didn't wake. He felt a little insulted. There was red hair spread all over the pillow. He wondered if she dyed it. Four hours.  
  
He ran through all the songs he'd ever heard in his mind, always aware of her; her presence filling up more space than her body ever would. She clung to him in her sleep as though he was her love, not her one-night lover. He stared at the ceiling for a while, trying to make patterns out of the cracks and damp patches. (They had been stars once, but that had been then.) He thought he could see a ship in one of them. Sleek. Fast. Dark. Not to think about that. He closed his eyes. Dark again. It was light in here. Candles, all over the bloody room. She'd insisted. Dared him to make fun of her; a whore afraid of the dark. He hadn't said anything. Maybe he'd been glad. In the dark you were always there yourself. He didn't want to be alone. He didn't want to be with anyone. There were very few other choices. Three hours.  
  
He tried looking at her. Why did she hold him like that? What was he to her? What was she to him? She was a few years older than him perhaps. Difficult to tell though. The sea could be gentler than the land. Fiercer too of course, but that was a different matter. Least you died young instead of living old. She wore too much make up. Maybe, he couldn't talk to others about how they chose to paint their faces mind you. A way of hiding no doubt. Did he mean her, or himself? There was no answer. Maybe it made no difference anyway. Everyone needs to hide; from what they fear; from themselves. Her hand moved unconsciously to stroke his jawline. He bit into his lip. Two hours.  
  
She needed him. Not because of who he was and not because of what he did. Perhaps because of what he didn't do? He'd never raise his voice to her. He'd never hit her. And despite his instincts he'd never cheat her or steal from her. She knew this. Trust. An odd thing to find in either of them. Neither were trustworthy after all. Neither knew how to give in to another human being, how to let them inside in the way that counted. Once bitten, twice shy the saying went. Probably counted for even more when the bastards had bitten your heart straight out of your chest. An hour.  
  
He couldn't take it anymore. If she truly needed him he couldn't be there. Stealthy as he had ever been he eased his body away from hers, untwisting, untangling. He looked quietly and frantically for his clothes. One boot had somehow managed to get wedged beneath the rickety wardrobe. Dressed, he left a couple of gold coins – nearly all he had – on the pillow beside her head. He stooped and kissed her on the forehead. She shifted and murmured something that might have been his name. It probably wasn't though.  
  
He picked up his hat and walked out the door. At the last moment he half turned back and said, very softly "Goodnight, my lady."  
  
********************************************************************  
  
Please review. 


End file.
